In recent years, it has become increasingly popular for both casual and professional athletes to use portable audio devices, e.g., portable radios, cassette players, compact disk players, and digital audio players (e.g., mp3 players), to listen to music and/or other audio while exercising. For many athletes, listening to audio while exercising may improve the athlete's experience. For example, an athlete may be more inclined to extend a length of an exercise session when entertained by audio. In another example, an athlete may be motivated by audio to improve performance (e.g., to increase a running pace when a fast-paced or otherwise motivational song is played). In another example, a tempo (e.g., a pace of beats) of a particular song may assist an athlete in setting a tempo for exercising.
Today's portable audio devices feature a variety of user interfaces that allow a device user to interact with the device, including electro-mechanical (e.g., button, touchscreen, and microphone input, and audio speaker and vibration output) and electro-optical (e.g., still image/video camera and ambient light sensor input, and LCD display and LED indicator output) user interfaces. Other portable audio devices may feature other means for a user to interact with the device.
Generally, portable audio devices provide device users with audio playback based on user input via a device user interface. In some portable audio devices, audio playback is provided by the device to a user in real time based on direct user input, while in other devices, the audio playback is provided based on a predetermined program (e.g., playlist) created by the user or provided by the portable audio device (auto-playlist) or another computing device (e.g., internet radio). In this manner, portable audio device users desiring playback of one or more particular audio tracks must interact with the user interface of the portable audio device to specify the one or more tracks.